I wouldn’t say there is much of an upside advantage to the new builder except for the fact that you can instantly create a goo.gl link (but that presents its own problems that I will get to in a second).

But what Google is doing with this move is putting their URL builder closer to some of their other features and tools they have in their GA Dev Tool Kit for advanced marketers and developers.

While this isn’t a major change, it may indicate that they will be overhauling some of these antiquated tools in the future.

What is a URL Builder?

A URL builder, or UTM builder, is any tool or code snippet that helps append parameters to the end of a URL in order to prepare that URL for sharing with a certain channel or audience type.

When do I Need to Use a URL Builder?

For example, if you’ve got a new blog post and want to share it to Twitter under your own account, you might want to embed certain parameters into the link. These parameters will indicate to Google Analytics where the traffic is coming from.

Example:

Original URL:

blog.rebrandly.com/utm-parameters-made-simple-guide-for-marketers/

Now in order to track, you’d set your campaign perhaps to “social-media” your source to “twitter” and your medium to “myaccount-post.”

This will now show up in Google Analytics under Campaigns “social-media” and Source/Medium “twitter / derric-post”:

This can help differentiate which accounts you shared to, how much traffic each account drove, and what audiences are engaging and converting from what content.

This is especially helpful for separating out the traffic you drive from social media, and the traffic other people drive, which can be crucial for reporting and analytics of your digital marketing efforts later, and help influence where you spend your next marketing dollar.

Again, this doesn’t matter if you’re only getting 10 clicks a post, but if you’ve got a medium to large following, and a medium to large digital property, it really is a best practice.

Rebrandly’s Improved URL Builder

Here’s the thing about Google’s URL builder… It sucks.

It requires you to input multiple fields over and over again (if you’re doing the same task day in day out) and doesn’t let you choose the short URL you are creating.

As a URL shortener ourselves, this goes against pretty much all the principles we stand for, which is why we’ve created a tool that is just plain better.

Objectively better, I’m not just saying it. Take a look:

It allows you to:

Save and load custom presets, so creating custom links for your favorite social platforms takes two clicks instead of two minutes.

Then you can create a short link with a custom domain and custom URL slug within seconds, and be sharing to your social media channels (or other channels) in a few seconds instead of a few minutes.

This is no big deal if you’re only creating one or two short links a day, but for those of us managing large media properties, or multiple clients’ social media accounts, this will save you hours a week.

Related

Head of Growth at Rebrandly. Derric is a lifelong entrepreneur and passionate about helping startups and marketers not suck. He speaks, practices, and blogs about growth and digital marketing on Rebrandly and across the universe.